“It’s not just the finances, it’s the emotional part, too—being embarrassed, being ashamed, being humiliated.” Even now, though, she remains conflicted.

“The Internet makes this type of crime easy because you can pretend to be anybody you want to be.You can be anywhere in the world and victimize people,” she said.Instead, they continue until they are stopped by someone else.In reading the cases that follow, you will see incident after incident in which girls continued to be raped and sexually abused – sometimes for years – after the abortion clinic where they were taken ignored the state’s mandatory reporting law.“The perpetrators will reach out to a lot of people on various networking sites to find somebody who may be a good target.

Then they use what the victims have on their profile pages and try to work those relationships and see which ones develop.” The subsequent investigation led by Beining resulted in the arrest of two Nigerians posing as South African diplomats who had come to the U. to collect money from the woman on behalf of Charlie, who claimed he was paid million for a construction project he completed in South Africa.

But Charlie is still at large, presumably in Nigeria, and there may be little hope of bringing him to justice.

“This is a very difficult crime to prove,” Beining said.

“When someone is using a computer to hide behind, the hardest thing to find out is who they are.

We can find out where in the world their computer is being used.

But once the situation was eventually revealed to the authorities, the perpetrator was arrested and the abuse ended immediately.